From the maxi neon writing by Maurizio Nannucci to the first major solo show in Italy by the photographer Hélène Binet, the events not to be missed at the Salone del Mobile biennial dedicated to lighting

Five major exhibitions, a site-specific mega-installation, twelve individual architectural and exhibition interludes.

It is the very rich cultural offer that will animate Euroluce 2023, the biennial of the Salone of the piece of furniture dedicated to lighting. After a four-year absence, the event returns, from 18 to 23 April, in pavilions 9-11 and 13-15 of Rho Fiera, with a layout totally reimagined by Lombardini22 , ring-shaped and hyper-usable, and with a brilliant multidisciplinary proposal curated and coordinated by Beppe Finessi.

A multifaceted, dense, exciting program that ranges from architecture to contemporary art, from photography to technological experimentation, involving great masters such as Maurizio Nannucci and Hélène Binet, to young talents, such as From outer space and Martina Sanzarello.

A plural project, polycentric and multidisciplinary that revolves around the thematic fil rouge of Euroluce 2023, entitled The city of lights, the city of lights: “Like in a city where there are theatres, cinemas and museums”, explains Finessi, “so at Euroluce we have thought of various cultural events and places, such as exhibitions, installations, the multifunctional square, the bookshop imagined as a library with limited and unobtainable editions” .

The curator Beppe Finessi tells us about the schedule of Euroluce 2023.

The common thread of Euroluce 2023 is The city of lights. How did this idea come about?

Beppe Finessi: “The Salone del Mobile wanted to give a strong renewal impulse to the event, in particular to Euroluce.

In terms of cultural proposal, the idea The city of lights was born after observing the new layout of Lombardini22 who redesigns the four pavilions of Euroluce, no longer orthogonal and reticular, but in ring, a proposal happy, intelligent and successful, which alludes in the design to the freedom with which our cities are normally shaped.

Observing this new plan, it came to us spontaneously to think that this suggestion of the city should be honored and completed with a series of initiatives and events which are those that normally take place in urban centres, where we find theatres, museums, cinemas, galleries , the squares.

Starting from this starting point, we imagined a plural, polycentric and pluridisciplinary project.

Plural because it involves multiple actors, curators, artists, creatives, even of different generations, fields and origins, because we don't believe in a single thought, but in plurality and difference.

The program is polycentric, because it is not concentrated in a single point, but develops along the streets of the pavilions, which are no longer narrow and orthogonal, but have open spaces and squares, as happens in a real city.

The third aspect is being multidisciplinary: the schedule includes all those fields that are complementary to design, which is already well represented at Euroluce, and therefore we have included architecture, l staging, interior architecture, photography, contemporary art”.

What are the exhibitions and installations not to be missed at Euroluce 2023?

Beppe Finessi: "For us, right from the start, it was important to provide a cultural presence, called Libreria Mobile, and entrusted to Corraini, who are not only publishers pure and independent, but they were born fifty years ago as art gallery owners, and then, thanks to Bruno Munari, after ten years they became publishers; a bookcase, imagined by the Formafantasma, which alludes to the world of the library, to the place of study and discovery, where you can find a selection of special books, even those that are off the market, multiples, prints, works of art, limited edition volumes.

Euroluce will see the presence of many artists: the master Maurizio Nannucci signs for us the maxi installation of twenty meters You can image the opposite, created in his unmistakable style with large characters neon.

Then there will be the exhibition dedicated to Hélène Binet, reference photographer of the most famous architects, from Zaha Hadid to David</strong > Chipperfield.

It is the first time that Hélène Binet is in Italy with a solo exhibition of hers, curated by Massimo Curzi, a sophisticated and refined architect who made this legendary photographer known in our Village.

And again: Sunrises and lights of tomorrow, curated by Matteo Pirola, and set up by From outer space, studio formed by the very young Anna Paola Buonanno and Piergiorgio Italiano; an exhibition on research design around the theme of light, a series of experiments by artist-inventors who have built artificial stars, celestial bodies, celestial shades, which allow us to talk about light without neglecting its more emotional components, such as darkness and the twilight.

Then there is the Fiat bulb, the Edison syndrome of Martina Sanzarello, another very young girl, a tribute to the light bulb, a shape that has remained in our memory so much that it has become an archetype, so much so that many experimenters between art and design, from Ingo Maurer to Francesco Faccin, have interpreted this light source, supplanted by technology, but never forgotten; an exhibition not to be missed also for its set-up, an assembly line, a sort of truly unsettling loop, created with talent and freedom by Martina Sanzarello".

There is also an exhibition that looks at living interiors and their relationship with light

Beppe Finessi: “It's called Interno notte. Artifices of light, curated by the architect Michele Calzavara, with set-up by the Turkish designer Berfu Bengisu Goren.

A research on interiors and artificial light, with over one hundred contemporary interior architecture projects signed by names of the caliber of Carlo Mollino and Alvar Aalto, just to name a few; housing examples where artificial light is solved in an innovative way through invention, with original and effective lamps designed as tailor-made solutions for that particular type of environment or need.

This selection will be presented through a sort of layout, with maps and atlases of possibilities linked together, linked by analogies and cross-references.

An exhibition that will have a function I would almost say didactic, in an articulated setting that will embrace a workshop area dedicated to Euroluce operators”.

Along the streets and pavilions of Euroluce there will be twelve Constellations. What is it about?

Beppe Finessi: “The Costellazioni are twelve groups of contemporary art works distributed along the streets of the pavilions.

A widespread exhibition that reaches out to the public, curated by me and set up by Formafantasma, who have imagined wings, backdrops, light and delicate walls, with wooden structures clear and paper, which lightly arch to embrace the exhibited works of art by authors ranging from François Morellet to Patrick Tuttofuoco.

Sometimes the Costellazioni will also pay homage to famous architects who have designed lamps during their careers, but which we will tell above all through their drawings, framed as happens in museums. For example, we will exhibit beautiful, absolute drawings by Umberto Riva, in a wunderkammer dedicated to him.

We will also have a special collection by the photographer Guido Guidi, with one of his historical works from the 1980s, in which there is a ray of sunshine entering through a window and changing into hours, a moving sequence that the world of photography knows, but which is rarely exhibited, and which we managed to get promised by the great master.

The Formafantasma also created Aurore, in the pavilion 13, an arena with a dual function, on the one hand a to attend the conferences, with a program curated by Annalisa Rosso with guests such as Shigeru Ban, Nao Tamura, Kjetil Trædal Thorsen and Marius Myking from Snøhetta and Andrea D'Antrassi from MAD.

A square that becomes a synesthetic installation, meditative, with maxi screens that will project images onto irregular vaults that allude to the various shades of light, captured in various fields, from medical to bioluminescence in nature.

Within the rich cultural program of Euroluce there will also be Sate-light, 1998-2022 SaloneSatellite young designers, the SaloneSatellite exhibition with lamps designed by the young people who have participated in the event from 1998 to today” .

Cover photo: Marjan van Aubel, Sunne, 2020. Ph. Nadja Schlenker